A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
Max WeberRead
The fate of an epoch that has eaten of the tree of knowledge is that it must...recognize that general views of life and the universe can never be the products of increasing empirical knowledge, and that the highest ideals, which move us most forcefully, are always formed only in the struggle with other ideals which are just as sacred to others as ours are to us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the complexity of knowledge and the importance of understanding differing ideals in shaping our views on life and the universe.
Max Weber's quote suggests that while empirical knowledge can expand our understanding, it cannot provide definitive answers about existence or universal truths. Instead, he asserts that our highest ideals are shaped through a dialogue and struggle with contrasting ideals that others hold dear. This highlights the need for empathy and acknowledgment of diverse perspectives in our pursuit of meaning and understanding.
Themes
KnowledgeIdealsUnderstandingPerspectivesPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of tolerance and understanding in a multicultural society.
More from Max Weber
All quotes →'Culture' is a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance.
Max WeberRead
The modern view of criminal justice, broadly, is that public concern with morality or expediency decrees expiation for the violation of a norm; this concern finds expression in the infliction of punishment on the evil doer by agents of the state, the evil doer, however, enjoying the protection of a regular procedure.
Max WeberRead
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.
Max WeberRead
The purely emotional form of Pietism is, as Ritschl has pointed out, a religious dilettantism for the leisure class.
Max WeberRead
Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.
Max WeberRead
Similar quotes
Hypocrisy means deliberately pretending. None of us lives up to his ideals; none of us is all that he would like to be or all that he could be in Christ. But that is not hypocrisy. Falling short of our ideals is not hypocrisy. Pretending we have reached our ideals when we have not - that is hypocrisy.
Warren W. WiersbeRead
Materialism is in fact no protection. Those who seek it in that hope (they are not a negligible class) will be disappointed. The thing you fear is impossible. Well and good. Can you therefore cease to fear it? Not here and now. And what then? If you must see ghosts, it is better not to disbelieve in them.
C. S. LewisRead
There needs to be a thorough examination, by Muslims everywhere, of why it is that the faith they love breeds so many violent mutant strains.
Salman RushdieRead
Be at Peace with Everyone - No one is capable of making you upset without your consent, so if you begin practicing the intention to be authentic and peaceful with everyone, you connect to peace itself- and gain the power to change the energy of your relationships with family and friends.
Wayne DyerRead
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
Bill MoyersRead
The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.
John Maynard KeynesRead